


anime is a zero-sum game

by suitablyskippy



Category: Gintama
Genre: Demolishing the Fourth Wall, Duelling, Foolproof Schemes & Cunning Disguises, Gen, Rivalry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-23
Updated: 2016-06-23
Packaged: 2018-07-16 19:48:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7282291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suitablyskippy/pseuds/suitablyskippy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Once upon a time, only <i>my</i> stoicism was humorously inappropriate,” says Katsura. The Leader rolls over to sprawl upside down on her park bench and regards him blandly, littlest finger up her nose. “Do you remember that, Leader? Do you remember the days when only <i>my</i> deadly serious nature could provide a hearty chuckle or two?”</p><p>“Get over it, uh-huh,” advises Kagura, and flicks a dollop of snot onto the immaculate blue of his kimono. </p><p>Her advice is as wise as ever, but Katsura cannot bring himself to take it.</p><p>(There’s only so much shameless copyright infringement a samurai can take before he reaches his limit. Thanks to Kyuubei, Katsura has reached that limit.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	anime is a zero-sum game

 

The first challenge goes unanswered. 

Katsura had expected no less. No rival worthy of the name would stoop to issue a response so soon; no rival worthy of the name would deign to take up arms so early. Their feud is yet in its larval stage – no – better: it is in its caterpillar stage; it wriggles on its belly, many-legged and determined as it consumes the leaves which nourish it, and though its colourful back appears invitingly fuzzy to the touch, it must be left alone. It must grow, and thrive, and it must bury itself in a cocoon of spit and silk to emerge and unfurl its wings into the world – a butterfly now, full-grown and powerful, ready to ride out into battle with its samurai helm glinting in the silver moonlight—

DON’T GET AHEAD OF YOURSELF, says Elizabeth’s sign. 

And Elizabeth is quite right, as of course Elizabeth always is. Katsura takes a moment to calm himself, to lower his brandished fist and regain an appropriately moderate pitch; and then he sits back down at the dinner table. “You speak truly, my friend,” he says, and serves up the rice he had been about to serve before his own rhetoric distracted him. “I am always grateful for your wise counsel. Would you care for a peppered egg?”

Now, the feud is in its caterpillar stage, and like a caterpillar it must be left to squirm through the mulchy undergrowth, growing strong before it can grow beautiful. It doesn’t do to get ahead of oneself: Katsura must be patient. 

 

+++

 

That first challenge had been issued two days before, at the very moment that dawn cracked its yolk across the sky. Katsura and Elizabeth had risen well before the light to journey deep into the hills; and together they approached the Yagyuu estate – not from the front, where its vast grand doors stood as ever under constant guard, but from a sidewards downwards angle, trudging through endless forested glades until the tree cover broke open and revealed the orderly, walled expanse of the Yagyuu grounds far below them, nestled complacently in the city’s foothills. 

“We must wait,” he had told Elizabeth, and Elizabeth had concurred, and so together they had waited, shivering, in the misty pre-dawn chill. 

As dawn began to break, Katsura pulled the bronze war horn from his obi and raised it to his mouth, and drew three long blasts from it; and then a pause, the rich sound echoing in the hills – and then another long blast – and two short ones – and a pause – and one last, long, lingering blast – and then he tucked the horn back through his obi and turned to Elizabeth with the satisfaction of a job well done. The first challenge had been issued; the summons had been given; now only the wait remained, and the hike back into town. 

The first challenge went unanswered, but that was mainly because Kyuubei heard its faint, brassy echo from the breakfast table and took it for a peacock’s mating cry. 

 

+++

 

The second challenge is issued in person, as is the traditional way of second challenges. Concealed in the unassuming garb of an unassuming priest, Katsura tails Kyuubei’s steps through town one afternoon, keeping always several inconspicuous paces behind, as soundless as a ghost and travelling just as unseen. His quarry leads him a merry chase, but Katsura sticks close, invisible and invincible and impossible to perceive. He follows through the residential districts, and follows through the marketplace, and follows through endless busy shopping streets, and then Kyuubei steps out onto a market crossroads through which a rough breeze blows in from the river, and Katsura steps out too. 

In the wind, the hoops on his priest’s staff chime magnificently. The crossroads is near deserted. The moment couldn’t be any more perfectly theatrical, even if it tried. 

Katsura swiftly closes the distance between them. The second challenge is in his hand, written in fine calligraphic script, and he clears his throat with understated grandeur and says, “A moment of your time, please—”

Kyuubei kicks his feet from under him and the market whirls on its head, stalls above the sky, sky below the street, and then his back slams down against the cobblestones and everything goes dark. The darkness smells like rainproofing oils and feels like woven straw; the darkness is his priest’s hat, fallen across his face, preserving his disguise. 

A sandal stamps on his chest and grinds down. From beyond the darkness, Katsura hears Kyuubei’s voice: “You’ve been following me all afternoon. Don’t ever come near me again, old man.”

Old man! _Old man_! – a term of address chosen with vicious ingenuity to target _specifically_ those aspects of Katsura’s character in which he cannot compete with Kyuubei; _old_ , for age, and _man_ , for gender, and _old man_ put together to drive home just how arrogantly self-assured Kyuubei is of victory on these particular battlefields, and the whole of it disguised as nothing more than an innocuous warning to a stranger... Katsura has always known his rival was no amateur, but to witness such a counter-attack – brilliantly well-crafted, brutally personal, ruthlessly disingenuous – brings it home for him anew: this is no green, untested child who seeks to challenge him, but a wildcard threat whose true abilities Katsura cannot say he knows. 

“If the circumstances were only a little different, perhaps the two of us could stand back-to-back and raise our swords together,” he tells Elizabeth that evening. “Perhaps our similarities could unite us, rather than divide us. But we exist in merciless times, when every man must fight his own fights, and do battle for every moment of his screentime, and strive for tragic flashbacks each more tragic than the last, and in these times a victory for Yagyuu Kyuubei can only be a loss for Katsura Kotarou.”

ANIME IS A ZERO-SUM GAME, remarks Elizabeth’s sign. 

“Quite so,” says Katsura, and takes a sombre spoonful of yoghurt. “And in just the same way, any triumphs of my own must come at the expense of Kyuubei-dono. Bound by fate, we can do no more than fight until those bonds of fate are severed; connected from the moment our manga-ka failed to mention via footnote that Kyuubei-dono’s character design was intended as an obvious homage to my own, we have no choice but—”

Elizabeth’s sign waves frantically in front of him: SHUSH, THE ADVERTS ARE ABOUT TO END! 

And Elizabeth is quite right, as of course Elizabeth always is. Katsura instantly cuts himself off – his rivalry is important, but watching the Tuesday night soaps with Elizabeth is far more so; and he props his chin on his fist and devotes his attention utterly to the passionate, heart-wrenching troubles on the screen. 

 

+++

 

Issuing the third challenge is a simple matter. In the lush expanse of Edo’s city park stands one particular cherry tree beneath which Gintoki and his associates are especially wont to picnic, for unfathomable reasons of Gintoki’s own which Katsura is certain he could never fully coax out from beneath their shroud of mystery. 

IT’S THE ONE THAT’S NEAREST TO THE ICE CREAM STAND, says Elizabeth’s sign. 

“And the man who works within that stand could be a Shinsengumi spy,” says Katsura. “Of course, Elizabeth! Your sharp mind works wonders once again. Better for Gintoki to stay close, and thereby keep the suspect’s potentially treacherous actions under observation as he doles out scoop after tasty scoop. Would you pass me the hammer?”

The picnics which take place beneath this tree do not solely involve Gintoki, of course. His expertise in the selection of picnic sites is widely recognised, and as a consequence this cherry tree is used as the site of picnics by the Leader and her youthful comrades; by the noble vagrant Madao, often found chewing disconsolately at stale bread beneath its shade; by the Shinsengumi themselves, presumably engaging in some sordid charade of lunchtime picnicking in order to provide support for their undercover colleague in the ice cream stand; and by the Yagyuu pretender to Katsura’s throne, frequently in the company of Shimura Tae of the Kodoukan Dojo – a worthy ally, a mighty warrior, but no Elizabeth. 

IT’S A BIT OFF-CENTRE, says Elizabeth’s sign. 

Katsura wipes his sweat-dampened brow and surveys his work. “Do you think?”

LET’S TRY IT FURTHER TO THE LEFT, suggests the next sign. PEOPLE MIGHT NOT NOTICE IT IF IT FACES THE WRONG WAY. 

And Elizabeth is quite right, as of course Elizabeth always is. Katsura sets to work again, prising out the nail with the back of his claw hammer, and rearranging the poster, and hammering the nail back in. By the time his work has satisfied him, the virtuous sweat of exertion and adrenalin has dampened his upper lip as well, and his handyman’s moustache is sliding out of place. He peels it off, and swipes the denim sleeve of his handyman’s overalls above his lip, and fixes it back in place; and then with a glance, he asks Elizabeth’s verdict. 

With a flutter of eyelashes that isn’t quite a blink, Elizabeth signals approval. 

“Excellent,” says Katsura, although a moment later it occurs to him that clarification could be useful. “Do you approve the positioning of the poster or my facial hair?”

BOTH, says Elizabeth’s sign. 

“Excellent,” says Katsura again, and adjusts the brim of his peaked handyman’s cap with just the kind of simple, unpretentious satisfaction in his work that might be expected of Journeyman Katsuro, travelling labourer and dutiful craftsman, no longer able to find joy in anything but his work since the passing of his one true love: a slender, wistful girl, fallen victim to the mysterious red rot which haunts the eastward plains and for which, one day, on his lonesome travels, Journeyman Katsuro will at last discover a surefire cure—

ON YOUR LEFT! cries Elizabeth’s sign, swung down before his eyes to snap him from his musings. RUN, RUN, RUN! 

Behind the counter of the ice cream stand, the attendant tosses aside his scoop and seizes up a bazooka. “ _Katsura_!” he bellows, and slams one boot against the glass shield of the ice cream display to brace himself to fire. 

But Katsura has already dived for the shelter of the trees, Elizabeth close behind. With his back pressed against a trunk the first explosive shot goes wild, its blazing tail scorching through the trees around him – and instantly Katsura ducks back out into the clearing. It’ll be twenty seconds before the bazooka can fire again, and his handyman’s toolbox still rests open against the foot of the cherry tree, and Journeyman Katsuro would sooner give up his life than give up the toolbox that _gives_ him his life—

YOU CAN BUY ANOTHER! pleads Elizabeth’s sign, and then another, IT’S NOT WORTH IT!, and then another and another, signs flashing like the signal-to-landing semaphore of the shuttle station: SAVE YOURSELF AND RUN WITH ME! DON’T FORGET YOUR QUEST TO BRING AN END TO THE RED ROT! WOULD YOU LEAVE ME ALONE IN THE WORLD, JOURNEYMAN KATSURO?

“I _could_ buy another toolbox,” cries Journeyman Katsuro, as he scrambles on his belly through the grass, through the acrid smoke, “but I could never buy _this_ toolbox, Elizabeth! And this toolbox is the only one I want! Gifted to me by a woman whom I knew from the moment of our meeting would be my one true love from then until such time as I lay upon my deathbed, equipped with tools she forged with her own deft hands, offered up to me as a token of her precious love—”

The second blast of the bazooka singes off the top of Elizabeth’s next sign: HER MEMORY WON’T LIVE ON IF YOU DIE TODAY! 

Journeyman Katsuro seizes up his toolbox and runs for it. 

 

+++

 

It’s Kagura who finds the third challenge. 

“Challenge to a – something,” she says, and squints up close. “Meet at the – somewhere, and something something weapons. At midnight.”

“Is that Kyuubei-san’s name?” says Shinpachi. “Next to that burn mark – does that say Yagyuu?”

In the spirit of investigation, Kagura squints even closer at the charred remains of the poster, and sniffs at it, and prowls twice around the scorched tree that bears it, and coaxes Sadaharu to lick it, and leans in and prods it. A corner crumbles to ash beneath her finger. “Hard to say,” Kagura says at last, grim as any hardened private eye, “but probably not, uh-huh. It’s probably yoghurt, not Yagyuu. And it’s probably from Sacchan,” she adds, “she’s always challenging Gin-chan to unsheathe his sword and impale her with his naked blade in the middle of the night.”

“Makes sense,” agrees Shinpachi, and buys them both an ice cream from the recently refurbished stand nearby, and neither of them thinks anything more of it. 

 

+++

 

On the date specified by the third challenge, Katsura waits all night on the riverbank beneath Kabukichou’s widest bridge. Clad in the ceremonial kimono of one-on-one combat, steel sheathed in leather at his side, he paces the muddy shore with the tranquillity of a man who wakes each morning prepared to face death by evening; and Elizabeth waits with him, armed and armoured and prepared at any moment to step in and assume the duties of a second. The swollen, silvery moon casts its light across the river’s sludgy waters, and the dazzle of Kabukichou nightlife casts its shine across the waters too, and Katsura waits, and waits, and waits. 

Dawn comes. Kyuubei doesn’t. Katsura declares the duel a forfeit, and sets triumphantly out for home with Elizabeth through streets turned salmon-pink by morning light. 

 

+++

 

The fourth challenge is chalked onto the street outside the Yorozuya base of operations, and washed away by rain. The fifth challenge is broadcast via radio, on a frequency guaranteed by the salesman from whom Katsura makes the purchase to interfere with the dreams of every sleeping citizen, although it does nothing of the sort. The sixth challenge takes the combined efforts of the Jouishishi a whole afternoon to prepare, painting out the characters on vast white posterboard, but Katsura parades it through the streets of Edo on an evening when Kyuubei is deep within the palace of the Shogun – shame upon his name – attending a banquet in honour of the birthday of the Shogun’s little sister – shame upon her name, too – and far, far from any window that might provide a view from the sprawling, ornate palace grounds into the city. 

The seventh challenge is still a work in progress – at home, in pieces, partially assembled on Elizabeth’s sewing table – when Katsura wheels his recycling cart backwards out of the next alley on his designated collection route one morning and crashes into Kyuubei. 

Each of them is as startled as the other, and as slow to recognise the other, and the first thing from Katsura’s mouth is, “I beg your pardon, young sir; I seek to cleanse this city of its recyclable waste and its Amanto-loyalist scum, not impede the passage of its humble, hard-working citizens—”

“It’s nothing,” Kyuubei says courteously, “I should have seen where I was—”

Katsura’s recruitment speech pauses. Kyuubei’s token effort to push one of Katsura’s stacked piles of old newspapers back into position pauses. 

“Kyuubei-dono,” says Katsura, frostily polite. “I see you’ve chosen to invade my territory more literally than usual today.”

“Katsura-dono,” says Kyuubei, frostily polite. “You’re wearing my coat.”

“I’m not,” says Katsura, which is quite true: Kyuubei is wearing Kyuubei’s coat, and Katsura is wearing merely an imitation of Kyuubei’s coat put together by his and Elizabeth’s own long hours of labour at the sewing machine. “You have no claim upon this design, Kyuubei-dono. Perhaps it is _you_ who is wearing _my_ coat.”

Kyuubei’s eye narrows. “No true samurai would steal the characteristic attire of another, Katsura-dono.”

“Is that so?” says Katsura. He brushes dust from one sleek white lapel, and inquires, studiedly careless: “Then what does that make you, Kyuubei-dono? You, who has stolen so much more than that from me – what are _you_? Can you truly call yourself a samurai?” 

“I have stolen nothing from you,” says Kyuubei, with the stubborn calm which has been Katsura’s hallmark for as long he’s had a hallmark – the stubborn calm which is Katsura’s by rights, which he earned and honed and _made his own_ — 

“You have stolen _everything_ from me!” says Katsura. He drops the handle of his recycling cart and the back wheels hit the cobblestones with a hard thud; stacked newspapers jounce and slide against each other. The passion is in him, and he cries out, “Tell me, Kyuubei-dono, how does it feel to find your trademark mimicked by another? To be robbed of what you once believed was yours alone? To—”

“You would speak to _me_ of theft?” Kyuubei says, sharper than before. The stubborn calm is fraying: fists clenched, voice rising. “Have you no shame, Katsura-dono? No honour? When you stand here in _my_ coat, wearing _my_ eyepatch—” 

“I wore an eyepatch long before _you_ wore an eyepatch!” Katsura snaps, clapping a protective hand across it. “I incorporated eyepatches into my range of foolproof disguises long before _you_ stole my thunder! And now you think you’ve cornered the market in wearing eyepatches, just because _you_ wear it constantly while _I_ save it for special occasions? Ha! Ah- _ha_! Don’t make me laugh!”

But he throws his head back and laughs anyway; and then he whips off the official beige cap of the city’s recycling squad and does it again, because the first time his hair hadn’t flowed like liquid silk with the motion and it’s far more impressive when it does. His laughter booms out grandly through the quiet street: “Ha! Ha! Ah-ha- _ha_! Ah-ha-ha- _hah_ —”

“If you wish to wear an eyepatch constantly,” interrupts Kyuubei, deadly serious, hand on sword hilt, “then it wouldn’t take a moment for me to do you that favour, Katsura-dono—”

“If you wish to issue me a challenge,” interrupts Katsura, deadly serious, hand on sword hilt, “then be upfront with your intentions, Kyuubei-dono. For instance: are you threatening to reduce the distance between our characters even further? Are you threatening to make me even more redundant in this cast than I already am?”

Kyuubei’s sword is halfway from its sheath. “Are you asking me to challenge you, Katsura-dono?”

Katsura’s sword is halfway from its sheath. “Are you refusing to challenge me, Kyuubei-dono?”

“You mistake me for yourself,” says Kyuubei, “but _I_ have my honour, unlike you.” Both swords are drawn in the same instant with a low, shimmering sound of steel. Neither of them has looked away for even a moment from the other. “If this is how it must be between us, then let it be.”

“Let us end it here,” agrees Katsura, readying his stance. “Let us let strength and honour decide. Let—”

From the alleyway at Katsura’s back erupts a sudden storm of rubble and stone and brick dust, as a battering ram demolishes a wall and charges out into the street; and from both ends of the road, sirens scream suddenly into life. “This is the Shinsengumi! Surrender at once, Katsura!”

Katsura sheathes his sword. “Another time, Kyuubei-dono,” he says crisply, and he grabs up the handle of his recycling cart and runs for it. 

 

+++

 

The encounter lingers unpleasantly on his mind. At midday he returns his cart to the recycling depot; a little after midday he mistakes a friendly greeting from his supervisor for evidence of a Shinsengumi bust and reacts with appropriate caution, care, and military-grade explosive force; and a little after that, freshly unemployed, Katsura leaves for the tiny apartment he and Elizabeth are calling home this week. 

On the kitchen counter, Elizabeth has left a note: _DON’T FORGET YOUR LUNCH!_ Beside the note is Katsura’s lunch, forgotten. 

“Oh, _Elizabeth_ – noble Elizabeth, trusty Elizabeth, kind Elizabeth,” says Katsura to himself, as he stands alone in the empty kitchen, overcome by both sentiment and hunger. He peels off his singed, gunpowder-stained cosplay version of Kyuubei’s coat and tosses it aside. “My loyal friend, most loyal of all friends. My thanks are with you, comrade.” 

And he takes his lunch through into the main room, already lost to thought. Had he not seen Kyuubei this morning, he would not have spent his morning in a state of high distraction; had he not spent his morning in a state of high distraction, he would not have taken his supervisor for a dog of the Bakufu; had he not taken his supervisor for a dog of the Bakufu, he would not have blown up the recycling depot’s second largest warehouse; had he not blown up the recycling depot’s second largest warehouse, he would not have lost his job; had he not lost his job, he would not have returned home until the evening; had he not returned home until the evening, his lunch would have sat forgotten on the counter all day long, and he would have gone hungry, and he would have missed out entirely on the delightful fluffiness of Elizabeth’s tamagoyaki. 

Katsura muses this over as he eats. He’s able to enjoy Elizabeth’s excellent cooking as a direct result of seeing Kyuubei this morning, there can be no doubt about it. From negative events, he has wrung positive results – no, not that – _more_ than that: today he has seized control of his own destiny, and forced the world to bow to his own desires. Such natural power is a gift his rival could never hope to imitate; and slowly, steadily, the certainty of what he must do next is rising up inside his heart. 

“A samurai must carve his own fate,” says Katsura to himself, in the empty main room, and likes the way it sounds so much that he says it again, with his eyebrows lowered this time, and his gaze cast darkly, enigmatically into the room’s furthest corner: “A samurai... must carve... his _own fate_.”

But before he carves his own fate, though, just to see what’s what, he turns on the news and watches a report on suspected Joui activity in the city’s recycling compound that morning, and then he watches a repeat of last night’s _Only The Heart Is As Mighty As The Sword_ , shedding tears for Natsu’s impossible love dilemma in quantities that no one but a patriot who truly loves his country could achieve; and then he changes channel and watches the last hour of _Love Heals Most Wounds (Unless Infected)_ , which he saw three times in the cinema when it was first released and has seen another four times since then, but which loses not a fraction of its exquisite heartache on repeat viewings; and then he changes channel again and watches a talkshow host offer up her gentle sympathy to a young woman whose partner may or may not have been body-snatched by an Amanto parasite whom she now loves far more than she ever loved her partner, though Katsura has to change the channel again before long, because he grows so involved in the intricacies of the situation that he doesn’t realise he’s shouting passionately at the television until his next-door neighbour hammers irritably on their dividing wall; and then he changes channel again, and manages to catch a classic re-run episode of _Bride Of Sorrow And Flowers_ which ends, luckily, just minutes before tonight’s episode of _Only The Heart Is As Mighty As The Sword_ is due to begin—

The front door opens, and closes. 

AREN’T YOU SUPPOSED TO BE INFILTRATING THE RECYCLING SERVICE? says Elizabeth’s sign. 

“The purity and strength of my patriotic convictions was too much for my superiors to bear,” says Katsura. “They felt I shamed them, and rightfully so. But quick, Elizabeth! – sit down, it’s almost time for _Only The Heart Is_ —”

Their front door smashes down. In the hall comes the hammer of a dozen boots, the yells of men commanding men, and the sudden deafening cry: “This is the Shinsengumi! Weapons down, hands up!” 

A toxic wisp of cigarette smoke precedes the Demon Vice Commander – shame upon his name – into the main room, and he rips the cigarette from his mouth and flings it from the open window; even under this craven Bakufu, no man makes Vice Commander without an expert understanding of the power of a well-timed dramatic gesture. “Katsura Kotarou! You’re under arrest for—”

“Hurry, Elizabeth!” hisses Katsura, and shimmies all the faster down the drainpipe. 

With immense dexterity, Elizabeth whips out a sign with the same wing that also grips their shared sewing machine. I AM HURRYING! 

Hijikata’s voice rings out from the apartment that was their home but is no longer. “—your accomplice, the Amanto individual known as ‘Elizabeth’—” 

“ _Amanto individual_!” Katsura echoes, in scornful disbelief. “Where is the respect? I ask you, Elizabeth! These are the men to whom the care of our great city is entrusted, and yet _where_ is the respect?”

Elizabeth leaps the last few metres to the ground, flippers hitting stone with a solid _thwack_. SHOULD WE SLEEP AT HEADQUARTERS TONIGHT? 

“—terrorist activities, incitement to terror, terror with intent to – that window’s open,” says Hijikata suddenly. “Oi, that window’s open! Why the hell is that window open?” 

“Your strategic abilities are truly without peer,” Katsura tells Elizabeth, and both of them start running for their lives again for the sixteenth time this week. 

 

+++

 

Preoccupied by matters of survival and evading unjust justice, Katsura forgets all about the subject of samurai carving their own fate until he happens to catch word of the Yorozuya’s recent struggles to lead a team-building workshop for the students of the Yagyuu dojo. 

“And no one thought to invite _me_ to join this merriment?” he laments to the Leader, who informs him she’s selling her sympathy for the price of an ice cream today; and so Katsura pays the price, and the Leader obliges him with five minutes of heartfelt hysterical sobbing and wailing commiserations for his suffering. It soothes his damaged pride a little, but not enough – for worse than his neglect, worse than his abandonment, is the sure knowledge that this merriment would have involved not only the typical crassness of Gintoki’s Yorozuya, but also Yagyuu Kyuubei’s humorously inappropriate stoicism. 

“Once upon a time, only _my_ stoicism was humorously inappropriate,” says Katsura. The Leader rolls over to sprawl upside down on her park bench and regards him blandly, littlest finger up her nose. “Do you remember that, Leader? Do you remember the days when only _my_ deadly serious nature could provide a hearty chuckle or two?”

“Get over it, uh-huh,” advises the Leader, and flicks a dollop of snot onto the immaculate blue of his kimono. 

Her counsel is as wise as ever, but Katsura cannot bring himself to take it. 

That very night he composes a strongly-worded letter to Shounen Jump, expressing his dissatisfaction with the current state of affairs, viz. the existence of Yagyuu Kyuubei, fraud and imposter, and suggests several ways in which this trouble might be remedied: an official apology, an immediate removal of this second-rate wannabe from the series, a lifetime’s free Jump subscription, and a position on the editorial board to allow him the oversight to ensure that such grievous mistakes as Yagyuu Kyuubei never make it into print again. 

DO YOU REALLY THINK THAT’S GOING TO WORK? asks Elizabeth’s sign. In the elegant script there’s a shade of something that a lesser man might read as scepticism, but Katsura doesn’t deign even to entertain the notion; Elizabeth is his staunchest comrade, and trusts Katsura as wholly as Katsura trusts his staunch comrade in return. 

Still, though, the letter is only tonight’s Plan A. From the official Joui stationary cupboard Katsura retrieves the official Joui flipchart, and props it on the official Joui flipchart stand; he equips himself and Elizabeth with several official Joui marker pens, and declares a brainstorming session in session. 

“If Kyuubei-dono refuses to withdraw from my territory, I shall conquer new territory!” The headquarters is deserted outside of working hours, but Katsura alone produces enough impassioned noise that the dojo’s rafters ring with it. He whirls around and keeps pacing. “If Kyuubei-dono refuses to call a halt to this bold-as-brass invasion of territory which is mine by rights, I shall lead an invasion of my own – upon _new ground_ , Elizabeth!” 

Elizabeth flips up a wing in mute acknowledgement, scribbling rapid notes. 

Katsura whirls around once more. “Kyuubei-dono wants to be the serious character? Very well! Let it be so! Take what you want, Kyuubei-dono! That tired old character type can be yours alone, if you wish for it so badly! And meanwhile,” he cries, whirling around yet again, “meanwhile, Kyuubei-dono, _I_ shall forge new ground! _I_ shall reinvent what it means to be Katsura Kotarou!”

Elizabeth tosses aside the official Joui marker pen and whips out a sign instead. WHAT ABOUT AN EPISODE WHERE YOU DISBAND THE JOUISHISHI, START WEARING JEANS AND A T-SHIRT, AND ENTER A FAMILY-FRIENDLY STAND-UP COMEDY CONTEST?

“Jeans, and a T-shirt, and a colourful hat with bells on,” says Katsura, “in order to fully emphasise how light-hearted my new personality is, and how much laid-back humour could arise from my zany hijinks. An excellent idea, Elizabeth! Make a note!”

Elizabeth does, and promptly whips out another sign: OR AN EPISODE WHERE YOU TAKE UP SURFING AND SPEND EVERY DAY RELAXING ON THE BEACH? 

“Casual, carefree, and happy-go-lucky!” Katsura cries, and slams his fist into his open hand. “Nothing says Katsura Kotarou more than those three words, Elizabeth! Write it down! We’re on a roll!”

By the time dawn creeps in, sheet upon vast sheet of colour-coded mind-maps conceal the tatami floor. In the middle of it all sits Elizabeth, puffing at a narrow roll-up cigarette with the feverish intensity of a true creative lost to the act of creation, and Katsura still pacing, his hair pulled messily back to keep it from interfering with his frequent passionate gesticulations with his official Joui marker pen. 

“We should know no limits but those of our imagination, and our imaginations should know no limits but those imposed by death itself.” Katsura spins on his heel, wild-eyed. “We must be _free_ , Elizabeth! We must conquer—”

I CAN’T WORK LIKE THIS. The cigarette joins its fellows, tossed aside to smoulder on a nearby mind-map, and Elizabeth begins to roll another with a distinctly hunted air of tormented genius. YOU DON’T SHARE MY VISION, AND YOU’VE NEVER TRIED TO. 

“Vision! _Vision_!” Katsura spins on his heel again and resumes pacing in the opposite direction. “What does any man need in this world but a dream? Tell me, Elizabeth! A dream and a sword! What more to life is there but that?”

Elizabeth’s beak opens wide, and wider, and wider still – from within flares a blinding red light, as brief as it is bright, and when the dazzle clears from Katsura’s sight Elizabeth is smoking again, puffing furiously at the cigarette’s fresh-lit ember. I WANT AN END TO THIS ARTISTIC PARTNERSHIP. 

Katsura’s heart stops its motion. When it resumes, an instant later, the blood it pumps is now ice-cold. “Elizabeth—”

But new signs are flashing with vicious speed. THE CREATIVE DIFFERENCES ARE TOO MUCH FOR ME. 

YOU’VE NEVER SUPPORTED MY TASTE FOR BLACK-AND-WHITE FOUND FOOTAGE DOCUDRAMAS. 

NOT EVERY ROMANCE SCENE NEEDS CHERRY BLOSSOMS TUMBLING IN THE BACKGROUND. 

SOMETIMES LOVE IS MORE ABOUT WHAT ISN’T SAID THAN WHAT IS. 

SOMETIMES AN EMPTY WINEGLASS ON A DIRTY KITCHEN TABLE CAN SAY MORE ABOUT LOVE THAN 

The ice which has taken the place of Katsura’s blood pounds through him as he waits; and after a moment that lasts a lifetime, Elizabeth flourishes a conclusion: 

ANY NUMBER OF SCHOOLGIRLS CLASPING THEIR HANDS AND BLUSHING AS THEIR KIND-HEARTED SENPAI PASSES BY. 

“Oh, Elizabeth,” says Katsura, as his throat seizes up to choke him, “oh, Eli! If I had known – if I had but _known_...! You’re right,” he presses on, through the threat of tears, “you’re quite right, Elizabeth, as of course you always are—” 

Elizabeth hesitates, then adds: A CLASSIC SENPAI/KŌHAI ROMANCE STILL HAS ITS CHARMS, THOUGH. 

“Forgive me, Elizabeth,” cries Katsura, and falls to his knees, and then further still: brow to floor, “I allowed my ambitions to divide us – and even if you should find it in yourself to forgive my selfishness, _I_ never shall—”

Something thumps his head. It feels like a fist, which of course it can’t be, because Elizabeth is a large duck whose elegant body contains nothing that might in any way be mistaken for a human hand; but Katsura looks up and sees, through the blur of his free-flowing tears, a gruff new sign: THERE’S NOTHING TO FORGIVE YOU FOR. 

“Oh, _Elizabeth_!” wails Katsura, and dives forward for a hug of the sort that communicates passion and devotion of a level only true samurai could ever comprehend. “The creative’s life of the mind is no less strenuous than the samurai’s life of the sword, and requires just as much gruelling physical exertion; I knew this, but I allowed myself to forget it, and in my forgetting I behaved inexcusably towards you.” A brotherly wing pats the top of his head. Elizabeth blows a reassuring smoke ring, and the moment seems so beautiful that Katsura’s tears fall all the harder. “Long ago I chased my dreams into the heart of this wild city, and ever since I have sought nothing but my fortune, and my name in lights – and only _now_ , Elizabeth – only _now_ do I realise I have something worth far more than an internationally successful career upon the silver screen! Worth far more than screenwriting credits, or clout with casting directors, or a string of blockbusters to my name – I have friendship! I have _your_ friendship, Elizabeth!”

Elizabeth, too, has tears to wipe away when Katsura pulls back. I... SHOULD HAVE TOLD YOU SOONER. PLEASE FORGIVE ME, MY FRIEND. YOU HAVE A CALL-BACK FROM THAT LAST AUDITION. 

“No,” says Katsura. “No,” he says again, “you can’t – you don’t... You _can’t_ mean it!” cries Katsura, whose whole heart was lost to the scenario the instant Elizabeth’s sign swung up. “Not – not the Jackie Chan thriller, Elizabeth? The one set in the prehistoric Arctic? The one with the villainous polar bear whose prosthetic paw doubles both as a flamethrower and fully automated grappling hook?” And Elizabeth is nodding – yes, yes, yes. “I’ve dreamed of this moment since I was a boy,” says Katsura. “This exact moment. This _precise_ moment, Elizabeth. I can only say yes. There is no choice.”

Elizabeth nods again, and gets up. I’LL CALL YOUR AGENT BACK. 

“Yes,” says Katsura gravely, then: “No,” he says, just as gravely, and leaps to his feet. “No! _No_! There _is_ a choice, Elizabeth! What’s more important to me than Jackie Chan? What in this world do I prize more highly than the chance to abseil one-handed down an icy prehistoric cliff-face as Jackie dies heroically for me far below?”

I..., says the next sign, and nothing else, and then Elizabeth looks bashfully away and produces three identical signs all in a row: DOT DOT DOT...

“ _Us_ ,” says Katsura. He seizes Elizabeth’s other wing and gazes soulfully up into those vast blank eyes. “How can I swear that your friendship is all that matters to me, and then give it up at once for the sake of my own rottenly corrupted personal ambition? How could I _ever_ , Elizabeth? How could I—”

Glass shatters. A hundred heavy boots slam down on the headquarters’ roof with a sound like a drumroll through a megaphone in a thunderstorm, and a loudspeaker brays a squeal of deafening static. “This is the Shinsengumi! We’ve got you this time, Katsura!”

Katsura grabs the official Joui flipchart, and Elizabeth grabs the official Joui sewing machine; Katsura rips up the tatami concealing the hatch to the official Joui escape tunnel, and Elizabeth hooks the official Joui rope ladder hastily into place; and they both scramble down into the darkness. 

 

+++

 

Katsura’s loyal Jouishishi rally round him, and within the week a thriving new headquarters has burst into existence on the second level of a packing warehouse near the docks. The floor is a network of steel girders that echo underfoot; the ceiling is corrugated aluminium sheeting that rattles and rings out in ceaseless protest every time it rains. The warehouse itself reeks of fish, sealing wax, and patriotism, and Katsura could ask for nothing better. 

A birthday invitation arrives at that address some few days later, stamped and re-stamped and scribbled with a dozen different forwarding addresses from its travels through the elaborate sequence of foolproof fake names and imaginary past residences with which Katsura cunningly conceals his tracks. Within five minutes of the invite reaching Katsura’s hands, he’s out in the sweltering summer streets of Kabukichou, heading straight for Gintoki’s Yorozuya to discuss the matter in person. 

An electric fan is whirring atop the Yorozuya’s coffee table. With her foot, the Leader nudges it a little to the left, and then a little to the right, and then she slumps back against the couch as though the energy that further nudging would require is beyond her. Its wind stirs listlessly through her hair. “It’s not my _real_ birthday,” says the Leader, “but birthdays are about presents, uh-huh, and presents are about everyone showing how much they love me, and seeing as everyone loves me all year round, everyone should welcome the chance to give me presents more than once a year.” 

“You’re not inviting Kyuubei-dono, then?” asks Katsura, casual as can be. 

Shinpachi’s brow wrinkles. “Why wouldn’t she?” 

“I’ve got to,” agrees the Leader, flapping her hand before her face for extra breeze. “If I don’t invite Kyuu-chan, who’s gonna bring me a proper present? No one else is rich enough. Everyone else just picks up some useless garbage on the way and tries to act like it’s the thought that counts, uh-huh, but the thought only counts if you already bought me a space yacht and now you’re just thinking about how it drove you so far into debt they’ll be reclaiming your house before the week is up. _That’s_ the only thought that counts.”

“Except me,” says Shinpachi, and pats himself modestly on the chest. “For Kagura-chan’s last birthday, I saved up for two months and—”

“ _Including_ you,” says the Leader. “I let Sadaharu eat that trash you gave me and then he burped it right back up again, uh-huh. Do better next time.”

“You’re inviting Kyuubei-dono... _and me_?” persists Katsura, raising his voice above Shinpachi’s noisy indignation. “Despite our overlap, Leader? Despite our impossible coexistence? Despite the risk of bloodshed and paradox?”

“Good point,” says Gintoki, through a semi-chewed mouthful of something rankly sweet-smelling. A second electric fan sits atop his desk; his eyes are half-closed against its breeze. “Zura, you’re uninvited. Get out.”

“Not Zura, it’s Katsura – and _you_ can’t uninvite me,” Katsura tells him haughtily, “you lack the authority, Gintoki. Only the Leader has the right to determine the guestlist for the Leader’s own party—”

“Zura, you’re uninvited. Get out,” says the Leader. 

“Not Zura, it’s Katsura – and _why_?” cries Katsura, leaping to his feet. “Leader, _why_? Have I not served you faithfully and well? Have I not single-handedly nurtured and encouraged your development from brash newcomer to sophisticated heroine?” 

“Don’t you call me sophisticated! Don’t you _dare_!” The Leader bounds to her feet as well, hot-cheeked with anger. “You take that back, Zura! You take that back right now or I’ll rip your stupid wig off and stick it on Shinpachi like it’s chest hair!”

“You will _not_ ,” says Shinpachi. He yanks the cord of the electric fan so it skids to face him instead, and takes a deep, weary breath just to let it wearily out again. “Katsura-san, it’s a party. It’s only a party. I wish I could tell you more respectfully, but I’m too hot for that. You’re being ridiculous.”

Katsura draws himself haughtily to his fullest height. “ _You_ may think my concerns ridiculous, Shinpachi-kun, but _I_ think them well-founded, rational, and evidence of a very present danger.” 

“You think anything more modern than a digital watch is evidence of a very present danger,” says Gintoki. “You think toilets you don’t have to dig out of the dirt yourself every time you need to take a dump are evidence of a very present danger. You think your own hair getting tangled in a hairbrush is evidence of—”

“Will all of you _shut up_!” bellows Shinpachi. 

They do. 

“Good,” says Shinpachi, and, “Thank you,” says Shinpachi, and, “Now, I don’t want to shout,” adds Shinpachi, “because it’s much too hot to play the straight man. So instead, if you could just imagine I’m shouting and stamping around like usual when I say this, then that would be great. I’d really appreciate it. Is that okay? Katsura-san? Everyone?” 

A general murmur of assent. 

“Thank you,” Shinpachi says with dignity, and pushes sweat-sticky hair back from his forehead. “Well – okay. Okay, let’s do this. Kagura-chan is having a party, Katsura-san. And you’re coming, and Kyuubei-san is coming, and we all already know that you’re going to eat all the food and complain about how summers were so much more summery back in the old days before the Amanto came, and Kyuubei-san is going to follow my sister around all day and probably break most of Gin-san’s bones when he opens his trousers to urinate in a bush somewhere, and it’s going to be a normal party. A completely normal party, Katsura-san. So get over it, and please stop annoying everyone like this. Your fixation on Kyuubei-san isn’t healthy. Well – I mean,” suddenly unsure, he glances round to his comrades, “it... _isn’t_ healthy, is it? Did I go too far? I didn’t want to overstep the mark, but – it’s hard for me to judge, when I’m not shouting... What do you think, Gin-san?”

“It’s not healthy,” agrees Gintoki. 

“Really unhealthy,” concurs the Leader. 

“Ha- _rrruf_ ,” opines Sadaharu. 

“Sadaharu says he needs to poop,” translates the Leader. 

“Thank you,” says Shinpachi, and offers the three of them a smile of warm, fond gratitude. “I’m just not used to being the straight man in a normal tone of voice, you see. But I know I can trust you lot to keep me in line if I go too far. So you see, Katsura-san—”

But Katsura has already tossed his silken hair back across one shoulder and turned for the door. “Very well, Shinpachi-kun. Your point has been made, and understood, and you’ll hear no more of this from me.”

“Oh, that’s good to hear,” says Shinpachi, and gives a relieved little laugh. “Well, have a good day, Katsura-san. See you at Kagura-chan’s birthday barbecue!” 

Katsura lingers in the doorway, one hand on the sliding frame. 

“Have you got lost?” says the Leader, her voice strident at his back. “The door’s right in front of you, Zura. Is your wig in your eyes? Can’t you see the exit? Are you going?”

Katsura takes one step towards it. Then he stops, and lingers some more. 

Behind him, conversation takes a turn for the furtive. “Do you think he wants to say something?” asks Shinpachi, in an undertone. “This is getting a bit awkward, isn’t it? Gin-san, what should we do?” 

“Just ignore him,” advises Gintoki. “He’ll get bored and go home before long, and if he doesn’t then we can use him to hang things on, like clothes or seasonally appropriate decorations. If we put a lampshade on his head, we can tell our clients we’ve been redecorating.” 

“Clients always trust you more if you’ve been redecorating,” puts in the Leader, her voice an authoritative whisper. “It’s the same for confidence tricks, uh-huh, that’s why I always wear my hair ornaments. People always trust you more if you don’t look broke—” 

“This is your _last chance_!” Katsura bursts out. “Your last chance to say something that might convince me to stay! Your last chance to apologise, and think better of it, and revoke Kyuubei-dono’s invitation! Your last chance to speak up and _be heard_!”

A moment of silence behind him. 

“Um – well, I think we’re okay, actually,” says Shinpachi. “Kagura-chan? Gin-san? Anything to add?”

“Not really,” says the Leader. “Gin-chan?”

“Well, we don’t really want him to stay anyway,” says Gintoki. “Do we? So no, not really.”

“We don’t really have anything else to say, Katsura-san,” Shinpachi tells him, not unkindly. “But have a good day, won’t you? Say hello to Elizabeth-san from us!”

“You can say it yourself,” says Katsura, with ruthlessly cutting disdain, “at the Leader’s... _birthday barbecue_ ,” and he storms from the building in a state of such high passion that he doesn’t notice the lurking Shinsengumi squad until it’s almost too late. Not _too_ late, though; he sprints for a nearby fire escape and scrambles urgently up it, and the rest of the day is wholly lost to an exhilarating, heart-pounding flight across the city’s rooftops. 

 

+++

 

That evening, he and Elizabeth go out for dinner together. The heat of the day has subsided into a golden, balmy cool, and the walk home brings a soothing peace into Katsura’s heart. 

“I’ve decided to move beyond that petty rivalry,” he tells Elizabeth, as they pass along the tranquil riverside. “I have something Kyuubei-dono will never have, and that is the strong, fierce love of a staunch companion who doubles as my ultra-cute animal sidekick.”

DOESN’T KYUUBEI-KUN HAVE A MONKEY?

“That’s no way to speak of Otae-san,” Katsura says severely. “Really, I expect better of you, Elizabeth.”

I MEAN A REAL MONKEY, insists Elizabeth’s sign. DON’T YOU REMEMBER THOSE EPISODES? WE HAD TO GO ON STANDBY FOR THREE WEEKS AFTERWARDS BECAUSE IT TOOK SO LONG TO GET HIS POOP STAINS OUT OF YOUR KIMONO. 

At the memory of Kyuubei-imposed standby, Katsura’s fists clench before he can help it. But he’s that man no longer; he is a new man, a better man, and he only exhales calmly. “All the same,” he says, with gracious composure, “I have perspective now that I lacked before. And with this perspective, Elizabeth, I am able to see the futility of what I once believed was a blood feud that could only end in death. From now on, nothing will ever distract me from the righteousness of my cause again. I’ve moved beyond that petty rivalry.”

Elizabeth lifts a sign. 

Katsura keeps his gaze fixed determinedly straight ahead. “I said, I’ve moved beyond that petty rivalry.”

Elizabeth lifts another sign. 

Katsura looks nowhere but before him. “I said, I’ve moved _beyond that petty rivalry_!”

Elizabeth lifts yet another sign. 

“I _said_ ,” bellows Katsura, glowering ferociously ahead into the gloom, “I’ve _moved beyond that_ —”

A wing of soft cotton/polyester blend touches him on the hand. Katsura whips around, wild-eyed, and sees—

I’M GLAD TO HEAR IT, says Elizabeth’s sign. I BELIEVE IN YOU. 

Katsura looks up: the same message is writ large in those huge unblinking eyes, shining brightly with both fiery sunset light and compassion, which means it’s also writ large across Elizabeth’s huge, unchanging heart as well. “Oh, _Elizabeth_ ,” he says, struck to his very core. “How could I ever have doubted your support?”

YOU WERE BLINDED BY YOUR SINGLE-MINDED PURSUIT OF SCREENTIME, says Elizabeth’s sign. BUT I DON’T HOLD IT AGAINST YOU. 

And Elizabeth is quite right, as of course Elizabeth always is. 

“We can devote our time to more worthwhile pursuits now,” says Katsura. A renewed sense of purpose is swelling up inside his chest, which has always contained passion enough for twenty men – for _fifty_ men – no, passion enough for _an entire country_ ; and a renewed energy surges through him too, as he begins to pick up pace. “Perhaps I could infiltrate the city’s cats-and-dogs home next; it’s always struck me as a hotbed of both Joui sympathies and small soft paws. Perhaps you could go undercover, Elizabeth, as a cat or dog – your choice, of course – and I could stage a break-in to rescue you, and in the process release every one of that institution’s residents loose into the city, or rather into my arms, and then into our home—”

I HAVE CAT EARS LEFT OVER FROM WHEN WE INFILTRATED THAT COSPLAY CLUB LAST MONTH, says Elizabeth’s sign. 

“You see!” says Katsura, delighted. “You see, Elizabeth, our plan already comes together! You see what we can achieve when we just turn our minds to it! Oh, the Shinsengumi won’t know what hit them, Eli, this’ll be the cutest Joui raid they’ve ever seen... They prepare for war, but do they prepare for whiskers?”

Though a lesser man might believe Elizabeth’s blank unblinking eyes incapable of expressing emotion, it’s clear as day to Katsura that the fire blazing in his heart is mirrored in Elizabeth’s own. THEY PREPARE FOR COMBAT, BUT DO THEY PREPARE FOR KITTENS?

“Just so!” cries Katsura, and claps Elizabeth exuberantly on the back. “And doesn’t this seem like the kind of raid that could merit a mini-arc of its very own? Our time on standby is coming to an end, Elizabeth, I can feel it; and all thanks to the world-changing power of our friendship! Oh, I suppose that screentime is all very well – but _friendship_ , Elizabeth! Friendship is better still!”

AND FRIENDSHIP WITH PLENTY OF SCREENTIME IS BEST OF ALL, says Elizabeth’s sign. 

“Oh, _Elizabeth_ ,” says Katsura, sentimental as can be, “you are quite right, as of course you always are. Shall we conduct rehearsals for our next unforgettably dramatic entrance scene when we get home?” 

I’LL SET UP THE WIND MACHINE IF YOU CAN FIND THE SPECIAL EFFECTS CD, agrees Elizabeth’s sign. 

“Spoken like a true patriot, my friend,” says Katsura, and strides out for home filled with unspeakable pride.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> [I'm [over here on tumblr](http://www.suitablyskippy.tumblr.com/), where 95% of the time I'm just thinking very very fondly about extremely serious samurai of one sort or another. Thanks for reading, and any comments would be appreciated! ♥]


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